Friday, April 27, 2007

I'm a Hypocrite

I'm sure most of us could make that statement about something in our lives. To the point of this article, though, I'm talking about United States politics. You see, I tend to follow politics and elections and harbor strong feelings about policies and outcomes. Yet, when it comes right down to it, I've only voted during an election once in my life. In fact, I haven't even been registered to vote in the last 15 years. The truth of the matter is that I'm so cynical toward the players and the process that I see no reason to vote. Going further, I've never seen a candidate remotely close to me on enough issues to be worth voting for, and in my estimation, so many are crooks and liars that voting for the "best person" means picking the lesser of all evils.

There's an old movie starring Richard Pryor called Brewster's Millions in which Brewster, played by Pryor, runs a campaign to vote None of the Above. It seemed preposterous when the movie was released, but is it really preposterous today? Is that perhaps what others like me are doing when they consciously choose not to vote?

To delve a little into my somewhat divergent political opinions, I'm going to write a series of articles related to posts I find on major presidential candidate blogs. Those will include Obama, Clinton, Edwards, Giuliani, McCain, and Romney. If he enters the field, it will be expanded to include Fred Thompson and any other lesser candidate who gains momentum against the current front-runners. It will be a longer running series in which readers will hopefully see why someone like me tends to vote None of the Above.